Lifelines: Kate's Story (7 page)

The
baby would have been born next summer.

Mac
remembered his mother at the door with her suitcase. He yanked open a couple of
buttons, unfastened the waist of his jeans and the buttons of his shirt cuffs.
No pillow, but he’d slept without a pillow too often to count. Usually in
warmer places, with the exception of Northern Canada.

When
he closed his eyes, the memory of his wife’s flesh under his fingers grew
strong. He felt himself grip harder, heard her gasp of pain.

He’d
seen hate in other men, had watched rage consume guys who weren’t wired right,
but Mac always stayed cool, his hand firmly on the wheel. Better to drive, Jake
had always said, than to be driven. And Mac agreed because he’d inherited his
father’s calm genes, not his mother’s hysteria.

Bullshit.

He
woke at dawn, pain in his shoulder and a sewer in his mouth. He levered himself
off the bed and stripped as he headed for the tiny shower. He scrubbed hard,
then realized he didn’t have a towel. He got by with paper towels and
yesterday’s shirt, brushed his teeth and hair with tools from his shaving bag,
pulled on clean jeans and a sweatshirt. When he hefted the suitcase back up on
the bed, he unpacked because if he didn’t, it meant he might go back to his
house tonight, back to Rachel.

Last
night he’d come within an inch of striking her. He’d
wanted
to hurt, and
it might not be any different today.

The
truck started instantly when he turned the key. He shoved it into gear and got
as far as the stop sign on Coast Road, where he stared at the bushes across the
street while a dozen cars whizzed past. Only six-thirty; early enough to head
home for breakfast.

He
turned right instead, towards the new foundation on Taylor Road.

As
he pulled onto the newly-bulldozed gravel drive, he saw that the evergreens had
sprouted golden tips from the rising sun. He recognized the beauty, but
couldn’t feel it.

Denny
showed up a few minutes before eight with the kid they’d hired last week.

“We’re
still pouring concrete today?” Denny asked.

“Last
I heard.”

“I
tried to get you last night, tried your house and the cell.”

Mac
pulled the cell phone off his belt and turned it on. “Sorry about that.
Problems?”

“Jocelyn
and the baby get out of hospital this afternoon. I need to knock off early.”

“How’s
the baby?”

“Gained
an ounce. Did you know babies lose weight after birth?”

“No,
I didn’t.” He knew nothing about babies, but he would have learned. He gestured
towards the kid, who hadn’t jumped out of the truck yet.

Denny
said, “About today?”

“You
and the kid can both go once the concrete’s poured.”

“Thanks,
Mac.”

“Have
you named the baby yet?”

Denny
waved at the kid, who
still
hadn’t got out of the truck. “I want Angus,
which means ‘exceptionally strong’. How can you go wrong with a name like that?
Jocelyn likes Devin. Depending whether you take the Gaelic, the French, or the Celtic
meaning, Devin means anything from ‘servant’ to ‘poet’ to ‘divine’. A poet
would be OK, but I don’t want my son thinking he’s God.”

The
kid finally joined them, and Mac said, “Get over to those concrete forms and
check we haven’t left any tools lying around.” He knew they hadn’t, but it
bugged him the way the kid slouched around. To Denny, he said, “Where do you
get this name stuff?”

“A
computer program called
MuseNames.
What about you? When are you and
Rachel going to make your own kid?”

Mac
shrugged off the question. “Tell the kid to move it, and let’s check the forms
before those trucks get here.”

J
ennifer
woke with the sun hot on her shoulder and burrowed towards the other side of
the bed. She slid her hand over the sheet. Last night ...

“I
love sleeping with you,” she’d whispered as she pulled his arm over her and
cupped his hand to her breast.

“Do
you?” His voice sounded sleepy.

“Tell
me you love me.”

“I
love you, gorgeous.” He squeezed her breast.

“Can
we sleep like this? Please, Alain? We’ve never slept together all night.”

“I
want that, too,” he said softly.

“I
want us to be together always.” She whispered the words like a prayer.

But
she’d woken alone in the bed.

Alain
must be in the shower, or in the tiny kitchenette. When she stumbled out of
bed, the sheet clung, trapping her. She yanked at it, called, “Alain?” and
finally got free. Her three hundred dollar dress lay on the floor where he’d
tossed it when he stripped it off her. Worth every dollar; he’d been rock hard
when he thrust inside her, groaning her name.

She
pulled the minuscule dress over her body, a black creation designed for a
lover. She could still feel him inside, a woman’s soreness. His hands had felt
different last night, harder, and he’d wanted her badly.

He
always wanted her.

“Alain?”

Empty
bathroom, empty kitchenette. She bit her lips and rolled them between her
teeth. How could he leave her to wake alone on her birthday? How could he
forget when she’d reminded him so many times?

Maybe
he’d gone out for breakfast. No food here, just the wine, and he wanted to give
her a lover’s breakfast. He’d be back with hot coffee and croissants.

He
would have left a note for her.

She
ran back to the bedroom, searched the bedside tables, the floor, the tangled
sheet. In the kitchenette, she searched the counter, the table.

No
note.

S
ocrates lay
on the ground, his nose tight against the gate to freedom. He made no sound as
Kate opened the gate.

“I’m
sorry.”

He
didn’t respond. The air filled with the grumble of machinery from down the
road.

“Socrates
... are you cold?”

He
stared at her, unblinking, and she wondered how a dog could make her feel so
guilty. She’d locked him in the pen last night, and hadn’t thought of him again
until she turned her car into the drive a few minutes ago. He’d never slept
outside before. David had the pen built for daytime absences, not nights with
frost on the ground.

“Come
into the house.”

She
waited, but only his eyes moved. Finally she sighed and walked into the house
for a biscuit. She stopped in the kitchen, the milk bone biscuit in one hand,
senses stretched. The smell of stale coffee in the coffeemaker she’d left
turned on. The hum of the refrigerator. She thought of last night, of black
ice, her foot pushing too hard, the car skating out of control.

It
would have been so easy, the tree ... the telephone pole ... the car.

Easier
than finding out how to live.

If
she didn’t change something, she would lose herself in a country of Prozac and
intensive counseling, where she pretended to feel better while black ice
beckoned seductively.

Socrates
waited inside the fence, although the gate stood open.

“Come
out!”

He
set his chin on the ground and stared at her.

“Sit
up for the biscuit then.” Her voice sounded false and the dog knew she was
faking it.

Socrates
shoved himself into a sitting position.

She
offered him the biscuit, but he paused before he opened his mouth, as if to
tell her he saw through her game.

“I’m
sorry I left you alone last night. I’m sorry I didn’t come home.” She couldn’t
help that the words were a lie, and of course the damned dog knew. He crunched
the biscuit and she felt guilty because she wanted free of Socrates and
Jennifer and her mother. She wanted David back, and last night the yearning
could have killed her.

He
finished the biscuit and stared at her until she said, “I won’t drive anywhere
today. I don’t know about tonight, I can’t promise.”

Socrates
seemed to shudder.

Having
a
conversation
with the dog. Was that progress, or madness?

“We
can’t live this way, Socrates. I’m going to the garage.”
Because she
couldn’t face the house?

The
garage was home to everything from their first set of dishes to David’s unused
golf clubs. Her kiln and wheel, bought at auction on impulse. She’d planned to
take lessons to revive her fifteen-year-old passion for clay. An unfulfilled
impulse, drowned in the details of her busy life with David.

She
stared at the kiln and tried to bring to life the memory of slippery blue
Alaskan clay on her hands. A hilltop over the tiny town where her father contracted
to build a new veterinary clinic. Dad bending to pluck a scrap of earth between
his fingers.

Clay.
We can dig it out, Katie.

She
played with the blue substance, created magical small shapes while her mother
frowned at the mess. Dad fixed a place in the garage where she could make as
much clay mess as she wanted.

Her
father had abandoned her, and now David had left her with a daughter who didn’t
want to talk to her, a financially irresponsible mother, and a disapproving
dog.

Why
don’t you whine and snivel a bit more, Kate? Feel sorry for yourself. Turn into
your mother, telephone Jennifer with complaints she can’t possibly satisfy?

Snap
out of it! Drag out the kiln, unearth the clay if it hasn’t hardened to
concrete. Shove your hands into it and create something.

Alone.

“I
have to stop this.”

Socrates
stared past her shoulder, as if her words weren’t worth listening to.

Shit
or get off the pot, Katie. Set a goal. Set three goals. One for each part of
your life: leisure, work, relationships.

Now.

She
straightened her back and blew out a breath.

A
leisure goal.

The
clay. Get the kiln and wheel set up. Use them. But first, clean out the garage,
make room for a pottery shop ... pottery center –whatever the hell one called it.

So
much for leisure. What about work? A year ago, would she have referred Rachel
Hardesty after one session?

Work
goal: stick with Rachel Hardesty. Book a session with Sarah to examine the
reason for her reaction to Rachel—she’d probably land up working on her damned
mother issues again.

OK,
she had work and leisure goals set. Now for relationships.

She
wasn’t ready to think about men, and she dreaded the social interactions
tonight’s night out with Sarah would bring. Two goals were surely enough.

She
heard a sound, footstep on gravel, and behind her, a man’s voice asked, “Could
I use your phone?”

She
turned and Socrates groaned to his feet.

“Sorry
to interrupt, but my cell phone battery’s dead,” said the man from the
construction site.

Kate
said, “Inside. The phone’s inside.”

“Is
that a kiln?”

“Yes.”

“Are
you setting it up here?” His gaze scanned the piles of boxes.

“I’m
not sure.” What the hell did she mean, she wasn’t sure? Stick with the damned
goal, Kate. Her face felt strange, as if the unfamiliar curve of lips might
crack her cheeks. “I bought the kiln at auction, and somehow never got it set
up.”

“Your
husband ...”

“He
died.” The words squeezed through a tight place in her chest. “I’ll go to the
library and find out about kilns. You wanted the phone?”

“Yeah.
Thanks.”

He
rubbed his boots clean on the mat before he followed her into the house.

“Here,
in the kitchen.”

He
followed and she gestured to the phone on the wall. Why hadn’t she left him
outside, fetched the remote phone from her bedroom?

When
he picked up the receiver and punched numbers, she turned away to put on a pot
of coffee. He wasn’t talking, must be listening to the ringing tones. She
measured water and coffee grounds, turned on the switch. She felt stupidly
self-conscious.

She
heard him hang up the receiver. “Not home,” he said.

“Do
you want coffee?” Why the hell had she done that?

He
swiped one hand through his hair. “No, thanks. I’ve got fresh concrete about to
pour and one of my men went off for supplies and hasn’t come back.”

“Can
I help?”

“I
don’t think—”

“If
it’s a spare set of hands you need, someone to level the concrete between the
frames, I grew up on that stuff.” She felt an unexpected surge of excitement.
She could play with mud, level liquid concrete, clomp around a construction
site. She’d worked with her father Sundays when the crew didn’t clock in, dirt
and broken fingernails, standing beside him, surveying the day’s
accomplishment.

“I
don’t think—”

“I’ll
change and come along. If I’m no help, or your man turns up, you can send me
home.”

She
hurried into the bedroom before he could find words to stop her. In her closet,
she found the steel-toed boots David wanted her to throw out. She yanked off
her sweater and pulled on a denim shirt, tucked it into her jeans and topped it
with a battered hiking jacket. Then she pulled her hair back with elastic and
reappeared in the kitchen.